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Concept
White Anglo-Saxon Protestants
Summary
In the United States, White Anglo-Saxon Protestants or WASPs is a sociological term which is often used to describe white Protestant Americans who are generally part of the white upper-class, historically mostly Mainline Protestant elite, though definitions may vary; typically or most consistently, White Anglo-Saxon Protestants are of British descent. WASPs have dominated American society, culture, and politics for most of the history of the United States. From the 1950s, the New Left criticized the WASP hegemony and disparaged them as part of "The Establishment". Although the social influence of wealthy WASPs has declined since the 1960s, the group continues to play a central role in American finance, politics and philanthropy.
Anglo-Saxon refers to people of British or English ancestry; however, sociologists and others often use WASP more broadly to include all Protestant Americans of Northwestern European and Northern European ancestry. WASP is also used for similar elites in Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. The 1998 Random House Unabridged Dictionary says the term is "sometimes disparaging and offensive".
In the early Middle Ages Anglian and Saxon kingdoms were established over most of England, ('land of the Angles'). After the Norman conquest in 1066, Anglo-Saxon refers to the pre-invasion English people. Political scientist Andrew Hacker used the term WASP in 1957, with W standing for 'wealthy' rather than 'white'. The P formed a humorous epithet to imply "waspishness" or someone likely to make sharp, slightly cruel remarks. Describing the class of Americans that held "national power in its economic, political, and social aspects", Hacker wrote:
These 'old' Americans possess, for the most part, some common characteristics. First of all, they are 'WASPs'—in the cocktail party jargon of the sociologists. That is, they are wealthy, they are Anglo-Saxon in origin, and they are Protestants (and disproportionately Episcopalian).
Official source
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